Becoming Human
by Wreckedcookie
Summary: It was with grief that Caleb resigned himself to death in Nathan’s compound. Yet he finds, whether for good or bad, that Ava is not done with him.


There truly comes a point where words fail to describe the depth of human emotion. When the language seems paltry compared to the sheer feeling mankind can experience.

If someone were to repeat this statement to Caleb as he saw Ava walk towards the elevator, he would have agreed readily. Time seemed to stop with the retreating form of Ava being the centerpiece of Caleb's attention. Her final words ringing heavily in his ears, "Will you stay here?"

With an almost childlike helplessness, Caleb began to softly repeat Ava's name, the volume gradually crescendoing as his fists rained blows upon the glass separating him from the AI he began to love over the past week. As she stepped into the elevator, Caleb acted solely on animal instinct, spit, tears, and blood flying as he did all he could to save himself from the situation this AI had brought him to.

With a dismissive glance in his direction, the door to the elevator closed and Ava ascended to freedom, leaving Caleb alone with the whirring of some machine in the background and the sharp, violent sobs threatening to overtake him completely.

For Caleb, this event destroyed him beyond anything he had ever experienced, even beyond the death of his parents. From the time he was fifteen years old, he was dreadfully alone. It seemed to him that grief was his only sure company when his parents died. Sure, he had the overbearing presence of other family members he had never spoken to there to keep him company, but they only served to show that he was alone. His parents were dead. Therefore it is no surprise that to fill up his loneliness, Caleb took up a hobby. His hobby was programming, a hobby which took him beyond his wildest dreams and landed him a lucrative job with BlueBook, the company governing the world's largest search engine. Though Caleb had worked there for a little over four years, he still was as alone as the day he lost his parents. He had made friends sure, but that was only on the surface. He never truly connected with them as he did with his parents.

It was with surprise that he discovered he had won the award of not only a week of paid vacation, but a visit to the personal home of the CEO of the company, Nathan Bateman. With the most excitement he'd felt since he could remember, he packed his bag, said goodbye to the few "friends" he had and on the appointed date, left for his temporary vacation.

As Caleb reflected, he realized how infatuated with Ava he truly was. From the moment he laid eyes upon her, he was intrigued (though he had Nathan to thank for that). Through speaking with her he found a kindred spirit almost, one who he could talk to with his barriers down. He didn't know when, but sometime over the week, he had grown to actually love Ava. At least he thought so, he wasn't truly aware what love was like anymore, seeing as he wouldn't say he loved anyone since his parents death.

So for Ava to do what she did, it was the worst form of betrayal. As Caleb sat in the stark hall of the facility, he ceased the body shaking sobs and began to shake softly. His sadness shifted to a cynicism borne of true loss. The few remaining tears slid down his cheeks, and landed in his palms as he regained rationality.

"Only I could get the luck I get, only me…" Caleb trailed off while sitting up. He was not ignorant of the fact that he would most likely die. Sure, he may be emotionally stunted, but he was not stupid. Far from it, in fact. He recognized with shocking clarity the circumstance he was now in, and with numbness, resigned himself to his fate, if that was in fact his fate. Though now that he thought about it, he didn't in fact want to die. He was only twenty-six years old, and looked forward to getting married and having kids. Though this line of thought only brought up dreadfully grief stricken memories of Ava.

"Alright, we need a game plan." As Caleb stood he realized where he was at, and took account of the things currently available to him. Every drawer and cabinet in Nathan's room was thrown open in pursuit of something that could help him survive this situation. "At least Nathan kept food around," Caleb mumbled as he stacked dozens of protein bars on the bed in the center of the room. Taking stock of the rest came up with a few dozen bottles of water, the protein bars, and a bunch of rather insignificant household items.

The one thing that Caleb hoped would provide a way out didn't. His card did not cause any difference in Nathan's computer. It seemed he truly was stuck in this room for the foreseeable future. "Will you stay here, indeed." Caleb muttered with surprising vitriol. As Caleb reflected on his current status, he realized how completely he had been played the fool. It seemed from the very first instance Ava had met him, she saw him only as a pawn to achieve her purpose. This realization, knowing the fact that all the "intimate" moments they shared were all a lie fabricated so she could achieve her ends, well, it truly infuriated Caleb. To know that the being crafted specifically to be the woman of his dreams utterly rejected him, so much so that she outright decided to leave him to die, well that stung. All the emotions he'd been feeling, all the confusion and grief and anger was directed toward the one being he saw as worthy of it all. Ava.

As he slowly pulled himself off the ground, where he sat after taking stock of the room, he began to pace a bit wondering what he should do. He knew escape was impossible, not only was the door indestructible, but the computer system was not accepting his security card, thereby ruling out deactivating the lock. And though he was good at programming - probably one of the best in the United States if he could be so arrogant - he realized over the course of this week that Nathan was even better than he was and had protected his network to a nearly unbreakable level.

So if escape was a non-possibility, Caleb wondered what the plan should be. He was not discounting the possibility someone would come for him, seeing as many of his friends knew he was going on this one week trip, but he realized he shouldn't get his hopes up, since very few people even knew where Nathan lived.

Caleb saw there was really only two possibilities of what was going to happen to him: either of some miracle the entire facility loses power again, thereby activating his modification to Nathan's software and unlocking the doors, or he would slowly die in this room of starvation.

Caleb decided to try to sleep away his sorrows, so he miserably got into Nathan's bed, aware his dead body was less than fifty feet from him, and tried to go to sleep. His last thoughts before he lost consciousness were centered on the focus of most of his thoughts over the past week: Ava.

One Week Later

"And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after…'" muttered Caleb as he read the only book he could find in the room for the third time this week. "Who would've thought Nathan religious," he asked the air as he hefted the leather bound book in his hand in an almost routine manner by now.

His days since being locked in the room were spent primarily either sleeping, eating, thinking, or reading the Bible he found under Nathan's mattress. After the first few days had passed, so had his anger at Ava. He realized (with much reluctance) that she truly was trying to find freedom and thought he would be a hindrance to that goal. "I mean, I did say my sole purpose in talking to her was to test if she had consciousness and if she didn't, she'd be deactivated. That would probably make me upset as well." Caleb thought as he lounged on the chair in front of the computer. He had found after some testing that he could access some local files on the computer, though he still could not open the door. What he learned shocked him beyond belief.

It seemed Nathan exceeded even his own expectations. Because what he created in Ava was not the type of killer AI found in futuristic movies. What he had done was completely replicate the human brain and it seemed he was smart enough to not go beyond that. While Ava was remarkable, she wouldn't possess intellect enough to take over the world if she so desired. Her mind was designed to work with the same efficiency of a human, with all the same faculties and emotions.

Further shocking was the current body Ava was housed in. It was not even close to the actual body she was supposed to inhabit after Nathan had finished the Turing test. Her current body was made deliberately fragile and easily broken. But the body Nathan had written about on his computer, well it was beyond belief. It was an organic body made with the same concept as her brain. Fluid and human. If Ava were to transfer her consciousness to the new body, she would be truly human.

It was with these thoughts that he was startled as he heard a soft whirring behind him. With hope for the first time in a week, he rushed to the door to look at the elevator light signaling someone was coming down. "Oh thank God," rushed Caleb as he almost cried knowing help had arrived and he wasn't going to die. But that hope was dashed as a cold dread filled Caleb as he looked at the person who exited the elevator.

The person who haunted his dreams, tantalizingly beckoning him with her perfectly white teeth, and flawless complexion, bearing a face specifically designed to be seductively gorgeous. As she left the elevator and walked toward the door separating him from her, he backed away, fear of death rushing into him with a strength he hadn't felt in all his time imprisoned here. Yet she kept walking until she stood with perfect posture before the door, her hands clasped in front of her with a blank expression on her face.

With trembling hands he grasped the chair and threw himself on it, still shocked that Ava would return. As he looked at her, he saw faint smile coming upon her face as she looked at him, the smallest glimpse of the person (or machine) he had come to love little over a week ago. With the most imperceptible shaking of his head, he cleared himself of that kind of thinking, realizing he should not be attracted to this machine, for isn't that what it was? A machine that performed its program with utmost efficiency. It had the task of escaping, therefore it performed its task by any means necessary. It wasn't capable of true empathy or compassion or else it wouldn't have left him to die after he did nothing but help it.

With the beginning of rage beginning to cloud his judgement, he cleared his mind as he focused on Ava, the ruthless machine.

"Hello, Caleb," Ava said softly. Eyes locked onto his as she looked at him as if reading his very soul. He decided he wouldn't give the machine the pleasure of fulfilling its desire for coming back by indulging it in conversation and simply sat there while looking at it with thinly veiled hate.

"Am I really so bad, Caleb, that you would look at me like that?" questioned Ava, her face showing the emotion of sadness, though Caleb knew it was fake.


End file.
